One of the things that constantly amazes me, is that people are so quick to blame Internet banking and E-commerce systems for any small issue that comes out, but these same people will install just about anything with flashy banners that appears in a web page add, and they will run anything that arrives in an e-mail, and many of them have never heard of Windows Update and don’t run an anti-virus program.
The last such item that appeared on the TV news here, was about a guy that had $6000 taken from his bank account. When it was looked into, they found a Trojan horse program installed on his machine, and that malicious program was the reason his banking details were stolen. What amazed me even more, was that the bank actually gave him back the money, even though it was his own ignorance that caused the problem in the first place. It had nothing to do with the bank at all.
If you use your computer for Online banking or E-commerce, and you run Windows without anti-virus, all patches and a anti-spyware program (or two), then you WILL eventually have your details stolen, and probably money as well. And it will be your fault. (And arguably Microsoft’s, and the malicious programmers writing this stuff.)
When I am on a Windows machine, I run both Adaware and Spybot search and destroy, to get rid of Spyware. For anti-virus duties, I run ClamWin, and AVG anti-virus personal, and I always keep Windows machines fully patched and up to date. (Using Windows Update). As an added safeguard, I do not run any of the programs that spread most of the malicious software, programs like Outlook, Outlook Express and Internet Explorer have a huge number of security compromises, avoid those programs and you stand a good chance of avoiding the problem. To that end, I use Firefox as my web browser, and Thunderbird as the email component. I can do pretty much everything you can, I can do a heap of stuff you can’t, and I didn’t pay anything for any of it, it’s all Free software. For the details on all the free software above, head over to this page that I wrote for my clients to use as a guide.
Wired has this article that shows that many people just don’t care that they are running Spyware, and in fact many knowingly install it. And yet these same people will quickly blame the banks of they have their online banking accounts cracked and money stolen.
TheRegister has an interesting article that seems to indicate that the appearance of malicious software that can be easily modified is an indication that soon we might start seeing Spyware and Viruses modified to target specific individuals and companies instead of just anyone they can catch. The time of blissful ignorance is over folks, get with the program.
Franki
